, 1887-12-28
NEGROES or THE WOODS.


Human Migration.
On any good map of South America
may be found in Dutch Guiana the names
of a number of savage tribes inhabiting
the wooded and billy uplands of the in
terror. Among them the Aukan, Sa-
ramacca, Bekoe and Bonis are full
blooded negroes, many of whose ances-
tors were brought to America nearly two
centuries ago in slave ships to labor on the
coast plantations of their Dutch masters.
Terribly maltreated in the early days of
the colony, many of them took refuge in
the almost inaccessible solitudes of the
forests. Now and then they found means
TO tempt their friends still in bondage
to join them in the mountain val
legs. The bondsmen played a sorry joke
upon their masters in 1912, when Adj
miral Cassard attacked the Dutch settle
ments, and hundreds of slaves were
hurried into the interior for concealment.
Peace soon came, but there were few
negroes to return to the coast. for they
preferred wild life with their friends near
the headwaters of the rivers of Guiana to
drudging their lives away on coffee and
tobacco plantations. So the numbers of
self released Africans gradually increased,
and there their descendants have lived
ever since, as distinct from the Indians
around them as from the whites of the
coast. They have, apparently, not
grown in numbers for many years, but
there are row about 5000 of them, and
they are known as the Negroes of the
Woods.
Their story is perhaps unique in the
history of human migration. 1t is a
story of wild savages transported across
a wide sea to a new world, where they
regained control of their persons and &C
Invites and reproduced amid new sur
roundings the h~abitations and customs of
their native country. Dim tradition
alone has family preserved the memory
of their fatherland, but none the less
have they turned a bit of tropical Amer
lea into Ii semblance of the negro's Ms
tive home. Jet black in color, progna-
thous and thick Tipped, they have pre-
served the pure negro type, have shown
little aptitude for improvement, and are
very low in their social scale. Like
many an African missionary, who has
fruitlessly toiled his hfe away, the Mora
Wan brethren have labored for years
among the Negroes of the Woods with
little apparent result. In all essentials
bhC1 W bCidg IL liiOHe heSlOtS Ol Ille
west coast of Africa, who have had con-
siderable contact with the white races.
Their rectangular huts of wood and
thatch, built along the water courses,
are almost exact counterparts of those
that are found on the lower Congo and
among some tribes of the Ogowe river
Like the great Pahouin tribe of the
French Congo, they divide their huts by
thin partitions into two compartments,
one of which they use for sleeping and
the other for culinary purposes. Lik.
many African tribes they twist their
wool into little braids, wear arm and leg
ornaments of copper, brass and iron,
and adorn their necks with strings Of
beads or the teeth of wild animals. Like
the equatorial African, they tattoo their
bodies without the adjunct of color.
which is not among the In
dians, but is practced in Africa by only
a few tribes, like the Pahouin. In their
villages they are generally naked, and
they wear cotton coverings only when
they visit the white settlements, wher~
their scant attire of ornaments and paint
would not be tolerated. They have
abandoned their native custom of sleep
ing on the ground for the Indian ham
mock, which they weave out of ibers.
White men rarely visit these Africans
of the forest, chiefly, perhaps, because
their streams, which, flowing to the sea,
are the only highways into the interior,
are very difficult of ascent. The negroes
dislike to mingle with the whites, and
they never cave their savage homes ex-
cept when the need of rum and ammuni-
ton drives them to the settlements. Then
the lazy men, who usually engage in no
toll except fishing and the chase, cut
down a few trees, skillfully fashion the
trunks into canoes, and float them down
the creeks and rivers to sell them at the
towns. Oftener still they make little
RATS of valuable varieties of timber, and
invest the proceeds in powder and ball,
beads and bad liquor. Tonka beads also
exc out their trade
These four groups of blacks, like kin
bred tribes in Africa, are ruled by king
lets, and some of them take their names
from chiefs who led them in the wars the
Dutch long waged upon their escaped
slaves, only with the result of driving
them further into the woods. They live
chiefly upon vegetable food, which the
women raise and prepare. They make
no pottery, not being descended from
tribes in Africa that are skilled in this art.
Calabashes made of gourds are the re-
ceptacles for their rice and cassava. The
fact is especially noteworthy that these
Negroes of the Woods are more muscular
and vigorous, better formed and more
buoyant in spirit than their kindred, who
for generations have continued to toll on
the coast plantations. They are all of
the same origin, and they afford another
proof of the fact that man can far better
p~erpetuate his best physical and mental
qualities in a state of savagism than under
conditions where he is simply condemned
to a hopeless life of ~unrequited drudgery.
New York Sun.